Helen Van Etten
| Helen Van Etten | |
 | |
| Basic facts | |
| Organization: | Republican Party of Kansas |
| Role: | National Committeewoman |
| Location: | Topeka, Kansas |
| Affiliation: | Republican |
| Education: | •Wayne State University (M.A., audiology, 1979) •University of Florida (Ph.D., audiology, 2003)[1] |
| Website: | Official website |
Helen Van Etten was elected in 2016 to a four-year term as the national committeewoman of the Republican Party of Kansas.[2] Van Etten is also a member of The Kansas Board of Regents.[3]
Career
Public service
Since 1985, Helen Van Etten has been an audiologist. She works for the Topeka School District as the chief audiologist.[3] In 1988, Van Etten was on the board of directors for the Kansas Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and remained on the board until 2006. Between 2004 and 2007, she served on the advisory committee for KAN Be Healthy, a Kansas State Medicaid program for youths and young adults.[3] In 2010, Van Etten was appointed to the Board of Governors of the Eisenhower Excellence in Public Service Series.[4]
In 2013, she was appointed to the Kansas Board of Regents by Kansas Governor Sam Brownback (R).[3] She has served on several of the board's committees, including chair of the Academic Affairs Standing Committee, the Midwest Higher Education Compact as a representative and commissioner, and the Higher Education and K-12 Coordination Council.[3][1]
Republican Party activity
Van Etten was elected in 2008 as the Kansas Republican Party national committeewoman. She has served as a delegate at the 2008 and 2012 Republican National Conventions. She has also served on the Budget Committee, the Rules Committee, and RNC Site Selection Committee as well as attended the 2012 RNC Executive meeting.[4]
Van Etten has been an at-large member of the Kansas Republican Executive Committee. She served as the president of the Kansas-Federation of Republican Women's Shawnee Chapter.[4] Van Etten is a national board member of the National Federation of the Grand Order of Pachyderm Clubs.[5] She also serves as a trustee to the PAC Maggie’s List, which seeks to increase the number of Republican women elected to public office.[4] She is the secretary for Republicans Overseas.[1]
For the 2016 election cycle, Van Etten was appointed to the Republican National Committee’s Debate Committee, whose task it was to decide when, where, and on what networks the Republican presidential debates would take place.[6] Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus described the committee as being "responsible for implementing the new GOP debate policies in the 2016 presidential election."[6]
2016 Republican National Convention
- See also: Republican National Convention, 2016
Van Etten was an RNC delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention from Kansas.[7]
Van Etten was one of 24 delegates from Kansas bound by state party rules to support Ted Cruz at the convention. Cruz suspended his campaign on May 3, 2016. At the time, he had approximately 546 bound delegates. For more on what happened to his delegates, see this page.
Delegate rules
Kansas district-level delegates were elected at district conventions, while the Kansas Republican State Committee elected at-large delegates at a state convention. All delegates from Kansas to the 2016 Republican National Convention were bound to vote at the convention for the candidate to whom they were allocated and bound unless released by their candidate.
Kansas caucus results
- See also: Presidential election in Kansas, 2016
| Kansas Republican Caucus, 2016 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes | Delegates | |
 Ted Cruz |
48.2% | 35,207 | 24 | |
| Donald Trump | 23.3% | 17,062 | 9 | |
| Marco Rubio | 16.7% | 12,189 | 6 | |
| John Kasich | 10.7% | 7,795 | 1 | |
| Other | 1.2% | 863 | 0 | |
| Totals | 73,116 | 40 | ||
| Source: The New York Times and CNN | ||||
Delegate allocation
Kansas had 40 delegates at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Of this total, 12 were district-level delegates (three for each of the state's four congressional districts). District-level delegates were allocated proportionally; a candidate had to win at least 10 percent of the district caucus vote in order to be eligible to receive any of the district's delegates.[8][9]
Of the remaining 28 delegates, 25 served at large. At-large delegates were allocated on a proportional basis; a candidate had to win at least 10 percent of the statewide caucus vote in order to be eligible to receive any at-large delegates. In addition, three national party leaders (identified on the chart below as RNC delegates) served as bound delegates to the Republican National Convention.[8][9]
See also
- Kansas
- Republican Party of Kansas
- Republican National Committee
- Sam Brownback
- Republican National Convention, 2016
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 LinkedIn, "Helen Van Etten," accessed April 21, 2016
- ↑ GOP, "Helen Van Etten," accessed April 21, 2016
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 The Kansas Board of Regents, "Helen Van Etten," accessed April 21, 2016
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedgop - ↑ National Federation of Pachyderms, "National Board of Directors," accessed April 21, 2016
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 GOP, "RNC Elects 2016 Debate Committee," August 8, 2014
- ↑ Kansas GOP, "State convention elects national convention delegates," accessed June 30, 2016
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Republican National Committee, "2016 Presidential Nominating Process," accessed October 6, 2015
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 CNN.com, "Republican National Convention roll call vote," accessed July 20, 2016
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